THE NEW AFM 1-1
SHORTFALL IN DOCTRINE?

IN THE early days of World War II, Alexander P. de Seversky, a prophet of air
power, wrote that a flawed intellectual vision had limited the growth of air power to such
an extent that only a land- or sea-centered strategy was possible to win the war. He
believed a different vision would have led to the development of long-range bombers to
strike Japan from Alaska, rather than to the historic, island-hopping campaign in the
Pacific. In essence, he argued for air power with global reach. A different intellectual
vision would have prepared the nation for war management based on air power.1

I argue that our vision of aerospace power in Air Force doctrine presented in the new
Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force,
is likewise flawed because it addresses aerospace power far too narrowly. The critical
shortfall is its failure to explore adequately the flexibility inherent in aerospace power
to achieve national security objectives short of war. Both volumes of the new AFM 1-1
address military activities "below the level of war."2 However,
neither addresses directly the concept that military power, especially aerospace power,
may be used to influence situations before counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, raids, or
unconventional warfare become necessary.3 Our goal should be to achieve our
objectives before the situation deteriorates to the point where we must kill an enemy.
Aerospace power can be used to support the economic, informational, and political--not
just the purely military--instruments of national power. Our doctrine should reflect that
breadth.4 My central example is the shortfall in doctrine concerning airlift
because I am an airlifter. However, the same arguments could easily be made for other
elements of American aerospace power, especially special operations, that offer tremendous
operational flexibility to achieve objectives short of a resort to armed conflict.

Let's begin by looking at the language of the new AFM 1-1. It very ably addresses the
nature of aerospace power, stating that "aerospace power grows out of the ability to
use a platform operating in or passing through the aerospace medium for military
purposes."5 This sentence casts a net large enough to encompass all
military aviation today and space operations for today and tomorrow. Another statement
summarizes the key difference separating air from land and sea warfare: "Elevation
above the earth's surface provides relative advantages. . . . Aerospace power's speed,
range, flexibility, and versatility are its outstanding attributes."6
These statements are crucial because they are all-encompassing. All aerospace power and
its potential uses fall within their realm.

AFM 1-1 then becomes more specific, dividing aerospace platforms into roles and
missions. This is the crux of the issue, the area where our new doctrine is too narrow in
focus. Four basic roles are distinguished: aerospace control, force application, force
enhancement, and force support.7 Each of these roles is subsequently discussed
in terms of its integration into a theater campaign in an armed conflict. The four roles
are a meltdown of the six basic tasks outlined in our first attempt at coherent doctrine
published in July 1943 as well as tasks/roles in subsequent doctrine manuals, including
the 1984 edition of AFM 1-1.8 Given our new doctrine's almost-exclusive focus
on combat at the campaign level, airlift, special operations, surveillance and
reconnaissance, and electronic combat fall naturally under force enhancement. Of course,
it is true that airlift provides the necessary mobility for time-critical maintenance,
munition, and personnel support during an air campaign in an actual conflict.

In addition to supporting aerospace operations during combat, both volumes of the new
AFM 1-1 lay out a role for airlift in the fast deployment and sustainment of surface
forces--global reach. Airlift is characterized in our doctrine as both strategic and
tactical (or theater). Both types are defined in terms of combat force support and include
strategic deployment of force from the United States to distant theaters as well as the
deployment of tactical airlift assets to support those forces in theater.9
Currently, the C-141, C-5, KC-10, and aircraft of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet perform
strategic lift; and C-130s deploy to theaters as part of theater air forces. The C-17 will
combine the roles to a degree, being capable of carrying large payloads directly to
forward areas for end use.10 This airlift force structure dovetails with the
new doctrine. When the United States military undertakes a military campaign against a
hostile enemy, the airlift force is designed to support (enhance) the deployed combat
forces. AFM 1-1 addresses well the role of airlift in actual armed conflict at the
campaign level, but only that role.

Aerospace power, however, has a far broader application as an element of national power
than combat operations. Airlift demonstrates this conclusively. Beginning with the Berlin
airlift in 1948, airlift provided an option other than direct combat for the execution of
national policy. In Berlin, airlift was effectively used to control the escalation of the
crisis. A strong foe was bent to our will without applying combat power, but not without
applying air power. Roger Launius, historian for the Air Mobility Command, wrote that the
Berlin airlift was the "first large scale demonstration of the use of airlift in
executing national policy."11

Although using airlift as an option for executing policy is not addressed in the
doctrine, such activities are common. Operation Provide Comfort, mounted from Turkey to
feed Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq following Desert Storm, is a recent example of
aerospace power--airlift and special operations forces--executing policy rather than
enhancing combat operations. Another example of the nonlethal, constructive use of
aerospace power to achieve national objectives occurred during the 1986 El Salvador
earthquake relief effort. El Salvador suffered tremendous political and economic upheaval
through the eighties, and the earthquake threatened the fragile new democracy. The United
States, using military airlift at the request of the State Department, was able to provide
assistance immediately--medical supplies and teams, food, and building materials. Using
Salvadoran government agencies as well as American in-theater assets, the central
government was able to distribute aid to thousands, saving many lives and gaining
political credibility.12

Today, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, the world has
entered a new era. In this era, military power in the form of aerospace power has a far
broader role than combat. Influence on the actions and policies of foreign nations, hard
to measure but even more critical to have in the face of weapons technology proliferation,
is a national policy objective the American military can help achieve.13 The
concept that most clearly embraces this new broad role is "peacetime
engagement."14 President George Bush, in the National Security Strategy
of the United States, August 1991, stated that the foundation for peacetime engagement
is provided in our fundamental interest to seek "a stable, secure world, where
political and economic freedom, human rights and democratic institutions flourish."15

The definition of peacetime engagement is similar to the traditional application of
military power as part of a national strategy that combines and coordinates elements of
national power--economic, diplomatic, informational, and military--to achieve our national
interests in a region or country. The ultimate goal of using military forces and other
elements of national power in peacetime engagements is to facilitate the continued growth
of democracy and free-market economies. The concept is applicable in many areas, including
the emerging states of the former Soviet Union, which only recently were freed from
dictatorships and discredited ideologies. An excellent example of an airlift supporting
the tenets of peacetime engagement is Operation Provide Hope, which was flown by C-5
aircrews to key areas in the former Soviet Union.16 The airlift provided food
to areas where starvation and consequent political unrest were likely. Such unrest in the
collapsing empire is in no one's interest. Aerospace power provides the quickest, most
visible, and most flexible form of such engagement.

Airlift provides the glue that sustains peacetime engagement, but it is only one of the
elements of aerospace power involved. Special operations can serve informational and
political elements of national power. The targeting precision and intelligence provided
from space operations are essential to special operations and airlift. The use of
aerospace power in the form of airlift, special operations, and space is far less
provocative than an air strike or employment of combat surface forces. Our doctrine should
explicitly outline this breadth of application. Aerospace power should not be cast simply
in terms of a military campaign against an armed foe in a regional conflict.

Several additions to the current AFM 1-1 should be considered to achieve the necessary
breadth of thinking. First, enlarge the discussion of military activities below the level
of actual combat. Specifically, link military power and its ability to support other
elements of national power. Aerospace forces--tasked at the national level and employed
through the chain of command--may be used to support achievement of political,
informational, and economic goals in a region or country. State clearly not only that
military forces can achieve national objectives by providing options other than the
application of force but also that commanders and airmen at all levels should understand
this to be a major goal of aerospace power.

Second, enhance the chapter discussing operational art. Place stress on the role the
air component commander can play in a particular theater to bring aerospace power to bear
so that regional goals are achieved short of violent conflict. Nation building,
humanitarian efforts, and other host-nation support missions would be part of the overall
aerospace effort to secure our objectives. The idea is to use aerospace forces
constructively. The goal is to help create conditions where the United States can wield
such influence that our objectives are attained and conflict is avoided. Such an approach,
included in our formal doctrine and thereby in the charter of the air component commander,
would integrate aerospace power into the effort to coordinate national power "so that
our programs reinforce one another and contribute to an overarching security agenda."17
However, note that such actions are not entirely benevolent. A spin-off of such
prehostility activities would be that the theater-specific experience gained would make us
much better prepared to apply combat power if it becomes necessary.

Third, expand the discussion of airlift, special operations, and space surveillance and
reconnaissance in volume 2. For example, the current essay on airlift casts it solely in
terms of its most recent accomplishments in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm--the
first major regional conflict faced by the nation since Vietnam. The Berlin airlift,
although mentioned once in the essay "Military Activities Short of War," is not
mentioned in the airlift discussions in either volume 1 or volume 2 of the new AFM 1-1.
Strategic airlift is divided into two types--combat insertion and unopposed deployment and
redeployment, the discriminator being that one requires defense-suppression support, the
other does not.18 Many times airlift is used to achieve policy ends without the
use of force and only rarely is it called upon to support a theater campaign against an
armed enemy. The other roles need to be highlighted in the airlift essay. Naturally the
insertion, deployment, and redeployment of combat forces remains the critical task for
airlift forces. However, such actions, though necessary, may signal the breakdown or
failure of our overall policy of preventing conflict. I will leave for those more
qualified to suggest improvements to the discussions in our doctrine on special
operations, space, and surveillance and reconnaissance.

United States military forces are employed virtually every day in noncombat activities
that support the other nonmilitary elements of our national power in pursuit of national
objectives.19 Why, if we believe so much in doctrine, is what we routinely do
in practice so poorly incorporated in our doctrine? AFM 1-1 must establish the
relationship between aerospace power and other elements of national power. Establishing
such a relationship would provide a sound foundation for introducing the key idea that
airlift, spacelift, special operations, and surveillance and reconnaissance offer much
more than mere force multipliers or enhancement tools. They can function in direct pursuit
of US economic, informational, political, and strategic objectives.

Some may argue this proposal will result in a loss of focus and that watering down our
doctrine with discussions of noncombat activities could lead to a focus on training and
activities that lessen our capability in wartime. I reject this argument. In the case of
airlift, the wartime and peacetime missions are very similar. As long as our aircraft are
designed to meet the needs of the surface and air combat forces they support in conflict,
inclusion of peacetime engagement-type options in our basic doctrine will not detract from
the central wartime mission. Operations in the target countries will actually improve our
performance if a conflict or contingency arises.

In the years ahead, much less of our combat power will be permanently forward deployed.
The visible flagship of our national power will often be our aerospace forces, especially
our airlift forces. Our intellectual vision of how to use our aerospace forces requires a
broad and flexible view of aerospace power in war if necessary and in shaping peace.
Aerospace power should play as vital a role in the open hand of our post-cold war policy
as it does in providing a mailed fist. Until such breadth exists in our doctrine, there
will continue to be a shortfall in our thinking and our doctrine.

8. Field Manual (FM) 100-20, Command and Employment of Air Power, 21 July 1943,
6. The six tasks listed were: (1) destroy hostile air forces; (2) deny the establishment
and destroy existing hostile bases from which an enemy can conduct operations on land,
sea, or in the air; (3) operate against hostile land and sea forces; (4) wage offensive
air warfare against the sources of strength, military and economic, of the enemies of the
United States and its allies; (5) operate as a part of the task forces in the conduct of
military operations; and (6) operate in conjunction with or in lieu of naval forces.

Lt Col Robert N. Boudreau (BS, University of Massachusetts-Amherst; MA, Naval
Postgraduate School and East Carolina University) serves as military adviser to the chief,
Arms Control Verification Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), Washington,
D.C. A command pilot with more than 4,300 hours, he has also served at OSD as an assistant
to the secretarys representative to the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks in Geneva,
Switzerland. Other assignments include the 21st Tactical Airlift Squadron, Clark AB,
Philippines, and the 41st Tactical Airlift Squadron, Pope AFB, North Carolina. He was
operations officer and later commander of the 37th Tactical Airlift Squadron, Rhein-Main
AB, Germany, commanding the squadron through its deployment to Al Ain AB, United Arab
Emirates, for Operations Desert Shield/Storm and to Incirlik AB, Turkey, for Operation
Provide Comfort. Colonel Boudreau is a graduate of Squadron Officer School, Air Command
and Staff College, and Air War College.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author
cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do
not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the
United States Air Force or the Air University.